Local officials see $1 billion invested to bring bio-tech companies to Florida as money well spent

JUPITER - The gala grand opening of Scripps Florida's new three-building facility Thursday, coming weeks after Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies opened its building in Port St. Lucie, was more of a milestone than another seismic shift in the region's growing research cluster.

But for those at the ribbon-cutting with Gov. Charlie Crist and a handful of Nobel Prize laureates, the opening of this $600 million facility was a sign that the promised jobs are coming and that Florida Atlantic University will be a major life science community. Also, they say residents must be ready as more changes will come to the region because of these research facilities.

Government officials see the new research campus as proof the more than $1 billion invested by the state and local governments to bring high-tech companies to Florida from California, Massachusetts, Germany and Oregon will pay off in thousands of jobs through spin-off companies and auxiliary businesses landing in northern Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

State Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, an original champion of the Research Coast, said the Scripps-Torrey Pines cluster eventually will allow the region to be less economically reliant on its three historic pillars of agriculture, construction and tourism.

"This isn't the end just because we have Torrey Pines, VGTI, Max Planck and Scripps. This is the beginning," Pruitt said. "Our children and grandchildren won't remember anything that happens about today, but they will know 20 years from now and 50 years from now, that there was a lot of effort making this day happen."

Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons envisions Scripps' new 350,000 square feet of space in Jupiter, along with its future neighbor, Germany's Max Planck Society, as the lure to get the state to help pay for the $4.5 billion to $6 billion extension of Tri-Rail service from Miami north to Jupiter and beyond.

Portland-based VGTI Florida has begun to set up shop in Torrey Pines' facility as it works on plan for its own neighboring building in Port St. Lucie.

Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan said that as his Boca Raton-based school reorganizes, because of the current state of the economy, it is looking at the Jupiter campus becoming a focal point in its graduate programs for life sciences.

"What we're looking at is that this (the Jupiter campus) was once, not too long ago, a sleepy, beautiful little campus that is now part of ground zero of this mega cluster," Brogan said. "We want to make sure that the college of science and college of biomedical science are growing and bonding with what is going on in the state and the nation. We want to focus on life sciences, to make sure all the work we're doing is in harmony with what is going on at these science institutions."

A key to making these visions pay off will be getting private venture capitalists for future expansion and research to replace the state and government money that dries up for the private firms.

"Our role, government's role was to set the table, and now it's the private sector that has to come in. They have begin the commercialization of what is going to be happening behind these walls. It can't be government by itself," Pruitt said. "The President, to his credit, has $15 billion in the stimulus package for this, the sciences, and that doesn't include the energy initiative that is in the stimulus as well."